Entries tagged with: GobbleGobble

During Purity Ring's set at the BrooklynVegan party Saturday, they mentioned that everyone should catch Born Gold (formerly Gobble Gobble) who were playing an hour later in the backroom, and who used to feature Purity Ring's Corin Roddick as a member. Anyone who took their advice knows what went down, but if you didn't, and haven't seen Born Gold in the past, they've got a show that you won't want to miss. They requested that all the stage lights be turned off so they could use their own blinking light show, and once they emerged from darkness, they revealed a show unlike anything I've ever seen. The singer/keyboard/knob player stayed on stage behind his table of electronics as the other two band members danced through the crowd on stilts, banged shovels together for snare hits, gave audience members high fives, and just about anything else you never imagined a live band would do. Their set was largely (if not entirely) material off their recently released LP Bodysongs, which you can stream its entirety below with options to buy the whole set or download each song individually for free.

Canadian electropop futurists Gobble Gobble changed their name to Born Gold last week. The members are the same, the music is even more paralyzing. They'll release their debut LP under the new name, Bodysongs, on September 20 via Hovercraft/Crash Symbols. You can pre-order the album now on Insound and receive a digital download on September 9. Megan James of Purity Ring, the duo in which Born Gold's Corin Roddick is also a member designed the cover art. Check that artwork out below, along with the tracklist.

Grace your ears with the album's lead track, "Alabaster Bodyworlds," which you can grab above. It's skittering jungle beats and tropical electropop sounds like the perfect thing to throw on as you're cruising through rainforests in your spacecraft. You know, because people do that, right?

Born Gold will tour the US and Canada in support of their new album and new name this September and October. The tour includes dates with Blood Diamonds, Dan Deacon, Washed Out, Magic Mountain, Braids and more. They'll play Brooklyn on September 20 at Glasslands and continue to tour for the next month before culminating their run with CMJ shows in NYC. Those shows have not been announced yet. Tickets are on sale now for the Glasslands show. No opener has been announced yet.

I don't know if it's just solid booking (a la PopGun), or if it's just that SXSW has me recognizing more bands - whatever the case may be, Glasslands is on top of their game lately. (Craft Spells, Surf City, Timber Timbre, Grouper, Eternal Summers/Dream Diary, Free Energy, and Hunx/Grass Widow are just a few of the artists stopping by in April.) And after some renovations earlier this week, the venue is looking pretty good too. The stage occupies the same corner but now faces the door, so there's actually room to stand in front of the stage without having to worry about people constantly walking in front of you. The stage is also bigger and, according to the venue, the capacity of the club has increased. You can sort of see the difference in the picture from Friday night's Gobble Gobbleshow in the picture above.

I arrived to the show at Glasslands on Thursday, 4/7, just as the second opener, Young Magic, was wrapping up, but I managed to catch Oupa, the side project of Yuck guitarist/vocalist Daniel Blumberg (who also opened for Sebadoh and Richard Buckner at Bowery Ballroom Saturday night). It may have been the Porcelain Raft song "Dragonfly" (video below) that initially convinced me to head over to Glasslands, but it was Oupa's performance that I found to be the most compelling.

Long before he sheepishly confessed to being nervous, Blumberg's mannerisms and posture gave him away. He walked out without a word and carefully arranged a collection of hand-illustrated cassette tapes along the front of the stage. As curious onlookers filtered up to check out the goods, Blumberg began to play, his sound check sneakily morphing into his performance.

Though quite tall, Blumberg occupied minimal space on stage. He hunched down low over his keyboard, his unruly curly hair and loose-fitting denim button-up shirt doing much to obscure him from view, as if decreasing his surface area would also minimize his exposure to the crowd and keep him safe. Even the heavy reverb on his vocals seemed to be more than just an aesthetic choice. It provided yet another wall to hide behind.

But despite his obvious unease with being the only one in the spotlight, Blumberg played with a quiet confidence, and his beautiful, forlorn music perfectly matched his unassuming body language and enigmatic demeanor.

Though brief, I could have left satisfied after hearing just Oupa's set, but I was curious to see how Mauro Remiddi would craft his lush, multi-layered music in a live setting.

Porcelain Raft's music may not be particularly lively, but it did feature some pre-fab drum beats and bass, which was all the encouragement some needed to start dancing. (Compared to the set that preceded it, the music was downright festive after all.) Though the additional musical components succeeded in perking up the crowd and sound decent recorded, on stage, Remiddi seemed to be at his best when he peeled back the effects to reveal the more organic elements: the guitar, keyboard, and vocals.

Remiddi concluded his equally brief set with what is perhaps his most popular and immediately catchy song, "Tip of Your Tongue." You can watch the video for that song, and a whole bunch of videos from the Thursday show, below...

On record at least, Craft Spells is basically Justin Paul Vallesteros who made his debut album Idle Labor in his home. Vallesteros is making a go of it, having recently moved from Stockton, California to Seattle where he's turned Craft Spells into a quartet. Idle Labor is very much a bedroom pop album (and a very good one), clearly created by one guy who loves a lot of '80s music (OMD, Pale Fountains come to mind, as does New Order though mainly through the album art).

You can download two tracks from Idle Labor at the top of this post. But the Craft Spells live experience eschews the keyboards for a straight-up guitar pop sound that I'm told is a little more akin to Orange Juice. Which sounds pretty good too. We shall see.

Sebadoh

As you're reading this column, you're probably well aware that the '90s are totally back. Which means bands from that era are totally back too. Bands like Sebadoh whose classic albums Sebadoh III, Bubble and Scrape and Bakesale helped define the sound of "indie rock." (I tried in vein to find a clip of Lou [wearing a Joy Division t-shirt] talking at length about breakups on MTV's Sex in the '90s. Somebody get on this please.] And they're totally back -- in NYC -- this weekend, playing Bowery Ballroom on April 9th and 10th. It looks like the Sunday show still has tickets at the moment.

To be fair, Lou Barlow, Jason Lowenstein and Eric Gaffney started playing together again in 2007 but it seems a lot more interesting now, what with Yuck slyly cribbing their moves and all. Oupa -- Yuck singer Daniel Bloomberg's side project -- are supposed to open for Sebadoh Saturday, though it's not listed on the Bowery website now. For sure you'll get Richard Buckner, who's opening both nights.

BOAT

Keeping with the '90s indie rock vibe, don't forget Seattle's BOAT are playing Mercury Lounge tomorrow (4/9). It's a relatively early show -- BOAT are on at 9PM -- so you can go do something else after. They are super fun live, even when massive equipment failure threatens to derail them. BOAT persevere with good humor.

Surf City

One of the things you could do after BOAT is just stay at Mercury Lounge for the late show, featuring post-rockers Bardo Pondand New Zealand's Surf City. While they've never really broken up, Bardo Pond are best known for their late-'90s canon on Matador, full of lengthy spaced-out jams full of crashing waves of guitar noise and throbbing bass. The band's hazy groove sounds intact on last year's self-titled new album.

Surf City, meanwhile, are indebted to the classic Flying Nun sound, meaning a whole lot of the Clean, a good dose of The Jean Paul Sartre Experience, and maybe a little Bats for good measure. Their new-ish album is called Kudos and is loaded with catchy, noisy guitar pop, like "Crazy Rulers of the World," downloadable above. Coincidentally, Crazy Rulers of the World is also the title of my forthcoming coffee table book about novelty measuring sticks. Go figure.

"The new location is a pristine secluded beach area called Raptor Point, at the North end of the main (decommissioned) runway of the abandoned airport, right on Jamaica Bay. Gorgeous views of Jamaica Bay, Mill Basin, and of the distant Manhattan skyline; and a pretty phenomenal sunset spot." - Todd P